Comforts
by DanniB
Summary: While in the monster prison Susan wonders if she'll ever go back home to the things she misses.


Susan had begun to loose track of her days. She knew she had been at the facility for over a week now, but the days were beginning to run together. Without the sun, or a calendar, or a clock, time simply blurred. She wouldn't know what hour it was; night or day, since the rooms only had that harsh, artificial light or pitch blackness. Only the General's orders for lights out, the mysterious tube dispensing and even more mysterious mush at lunchtime and the revelry klaxon forcing them to wake up in the morning, gave her some idea of when in the day it was. But the Monsters knew exactly what day it was; it was Tuesday, because it was Toy Day, as explained by the large toy box that was waiting for them in the common room that morning. Just another privilege Monger gave them to reward good behavior. To give them something to look forward to. To take their minds off the idea that the outside world was beyond their reach. Susan dreaded becoming that complacent, to settle and forget what was out there, to define her days by routines and privileges.

B.O.B. had excitedly invited her to play with them, but she hadn't been in the mood to help him stuff as many rubber balls as possible into himself. Those rubber balls were now being spat up into the air in rapid succession, as high as they could go, before landing with a splat back into B.O.B.'s gooey personage.

"Susan, look! I'm juggling! Watch me! Susan! Hey, Susan! Watch me! Are you watching!?" The blue mass happily called out to her like a child would his mother. "Look, I'm gonna do it! Watch me. Susan? You're looking right? Cause I'm gonna do it now."

"I'm watching B.O.B." She smiled, but not whole-heartedly. He hardly seemed to notice as he formed a grin on his face that stretched it to almost twice its regular width.

"Okay, here I go!"

The balls came aloft again with a continuous popping sound. B.O.B. wobbled left and right to make sure to catch them, in his head, middle, or wherever on him they would land. He paused only to momentarily chuckle to himself, then resume his "juggling". Susan found herself smiling at him. He was endearing, despite his resemblance to a blue glob of mucus or the disturbing fact that he could digest anything that entered his mass. But the sight of flying balls going in circles could only hold a person's attention for so long, and soon she found hers back on what she had been focused on from the start.

"Cursed Cross-wires!" Dr. Cockroach swore with frustration, his antennae frazzled. All morning he had been working on his machine constructed from a cardboard box, a glass cake plate dome he found in the garbage, a vacuum cleaner also found there, a handheld gaming device, several salvaged wires, bits of duct tape, and a See 'N Say pilfered from the toy box. Sitting delicately under the dome was a single white eyelash Susan had plucked for him to examine. But the machine he had designed to determine exactly what sort of radiation she had absorbed from the meteor to make her this freakish size was currently coming up with constant read errors. He again crawled halfway into the contraption to make some quick adjustments.

She silently preyed that he could get it to work. If this was successful, the next step would be finding a way to shrink her back to normal size. Or at least that's what it sounded like the Doctor had said. It was sometimes hard to understand all his technobabble when he really got into what he was talking about. He had prattled on about half-lives, decay cycle acceleration, and cellular biology. But after seeing she had no idea what he was saying, and being a considerate gentleman, he assured her he would do all he could to help her.

And she believed him. He was the only person in the entire facility; out of soldiers, research scientists and other personnel, to actually make any attempt to try to figure out what had happened to her and how to fix it. Though he had been hesitant at first; he warned her such tests and procedures could be painful if not dangerous. A kind thing for a so-called "evil" genius to warn her. She was beginning to doubt he deserved such a title. But then again, she had only known him less then a month. There were still reasons not to trust him. There was over fifty years of unknown history about him that he was disinclined to talk about. Plus the rumor that he had plotted to take over the world, and possibly, still wanted to. Had he gone along with this plan to help her to quell his own scientific curiosity? Perhaps. But as the days had gone by; as they spoke more and more to each other, not just about her condition, but of her life before the prison, she had seen him become more determined to fulfill his end of the bargain. Despite the warnings, reservations and fears, he had become her sole hope in ever going home.

"That should do it." He stated, emerging from the box. Susan watched intently as he resumed the experiment. He flipped a switch on the vacuum, hit a few buttons on the gaming device and pumped the handle on the See 'N Say a several times until the arrow spun wildly, the machine whirred and the device's screen flickered with numbers. Steepling his fingers, he drew his face close to the screen as the tiny computer calculated the findings. His lips curled into an excited smile as the numbers and symbols multiplied into equations others could have never figured out in a million years. His eyes dilated and his antennae flicked up straight. Susan leaned over him and anticipation, both of them holding their breath. This was it!

The machine then beeped, the beeps getting faster and faster before the screen began to flash with "Error…Retry…Fail. Error…Retry…Fail. Error…Retry…Fail." Soon the beeps were accompanied by a cheerful electronic voice chiming, "The cow says, 'Mooooo'."

The doctor's antennae drooped and his eyes went wide with panic. In a flurry of action, he prodded buttons and tried to salvage the scanner.

"No. No! Nononono!"

But it was too late. The beeps became a continuous hum and the screen blipped to a solid green. Crashed! He tried rebooting the device, but still only the glowing green screen appeared to greet him with a cheerful, 'The cow says, 'Mooooo'." Seeing his experiment slipping away, he grasped the machine and desperately shook it.

"I know the cow says 'Moo'! What does the unidentified radioactive signature say?!"

"The duck says, 'Quack, Quack, Quack'."

The Doctor hung his head and sighed deeply, flipping the switches off. Susan could hear his frustration on his breath. She tried to suppress her own disappointment by sucking her lower lip and silently sitting back down.

"Heheheh, sounds like that duck knows you pretty good there, Doc." Link smirked. Susan glanced towards the fish-ape. He had been spending the day playing with Insectosaurus and hadn't shown any interest in the experiment at all. But it seemed now he wasn't going to give up an opportunity to dig into the doctor's ego.

"Must you?" The insect-headed professor groaned, giving an annoyed look at his fellow prisoner.

Link lumbered over to the Doctor, the sharp toothed grin still in his face.

"At this moment, yes, I think I must." He placed his large, muscular arm on Dr. Cockroach's slender shoulder and spoke candidly. "Take this as a sign, Doc. It isn't meant to be. Why don't you call it quits before things get out of hand again?" He gestured with a thumb down, frowning.

Susan wasn't sure what Link had meant, but by seeing the hurt look on the Doctor's face, she could tell he had taken the point.

"This isn't like our old escape plans, Link." Doc hissed back, "This is about helping Susan."

Link sighed, shaking his head, still frowning.

"That's what I'm worried about. What'll happen to her, when it ends the same way?"

Flickers of varying emotions passed through those melon sized eye-balls. Betrayal, guilt, fear, anxiety, determination, anger. He settled on outrage as he abruptly pushed Link's scaly arm off his shoulder. He pursed his lips and gave the amphibian a death glare.

"Fine, if that's how you feel about my skills, ye of little faith." He turned up his nose, or nostrils as this case, detached the gaming device from the rest of the machine and faced Susan. "I need to consult my notes, my dear." His tone with her was much more civil. "Where I won't be disturbed." His scalding look at Link with those words, however, was not. He marched towards his room, posture prideful and composed, head held up with dignity. But Susan noted, just as the portal was closing, his head and shoulders drooped low along with the sound of something she swore was a tiny sob. Link caught her glance and returned an awkward expression.

"Hey, don't worry about him." Link tried to smile reassuringly. "He'll bounce back. I bet he's so determined to prove me wrong, he'll have a dozen new ideas by tomorrow." He slinked away slowly, dragging his knuckles on the floor. "Just, don't take them too seriously, okay?"

Susan was confused to say the least. Link's last words didn't sound malicious regarding the Doctor. Instead they sounded more cautionary towards her. She wanted to inquire further, but she already felt like she was driving a wedge between the two prison-mates. This wasn't the first time they had had a disagreement with her as the subject.

When she had first arrived, Doctor Cockroach and Link had gotten along fine. She had observed their camaraderie and respect for one another when they had joined forces to make her feel welcome. But once the experiments had started, Link had begun questioning the Doctor. And when the mutated man refused to give up the plans he had made with her, the relationship between the two monsters began deteriorating. Link had begun showing coldness around the Doctor; giving him warning glances and insulting his intelligence openly. In turn, the Doctor was speaking to Link less and burying himself more into his lab work. She felt horrible about causing this rift. It made her feel even more like an outsider. Another sign she didn't belong here.

Was it wrong for her to be so focused on getting out of this horrible place that she'd risk the friendship of two creatures she was beginning to regard as friends? Or maybe once she was gone, they'd eventually put things behind them and "bounce back" as Link had put it. Then the idea that she'd be leaving them behind to fend for themselves, especially after calling them friends, made her feel bad even more. Dr. Cockroach was working so hard to help her return to her normal life. If he was successful and she left, that memory of the sweet, if somewhat odd, older man wasting away in a place where he was left to be forgotten would always be lingering in the back of her mind. Not to mention Link and B.O.B. who had played such a part in keeping her comforted and calm during her worst few first days. Could she carry on, marry Derik, live an ordinary life, knowing who she was leaving behind? But could she really want to live out the rest of her life here? Never. The maddening metal doors, fake sunlight, enforced schedules. No fresh air. No grass beneath her feet. No sunsets or starry nights. No calls from mom and dad, no ability to call them, or her friends, or Derik. Never to hear a familiar voice ever again. To be looked at as a freak by facility personnel. To be addressed as "monster" for the rest of her days. Or worse, "Ginormica," that horrible new name they were all calling her now. She knew, if she stayed here, she would never be Susan again, and all that came with it.

She was feeling quite torn by all this now, and discovered that in her homesick revelry a tear was trickling down her cheek. Even her tears were different now; they dribbled instead of rolled. The Doctor had explained the physics of it all during one of her first breakdowns in front of the monsters, but she didn't really understand, or care, she just wanted things to be normal again.

By now she found that she was huddled close against the wall, knees to her chest; hugging her legs like they could substitute for the people she'd never hold in her arms again if the experiments never succeeded. She buried her face in them, hoping the others wouldn't see her crying yet again. Amidst her muffled sobs she heard a popping sound circling near her feet. She had nearly forgotten about B.O.B. and his eager display of his "juggling" skills. Looking up, her eyes caught his vacant gaze. He stared at her a moment, the balls he had just spat into the air falling to the ground to bounce away unnoticed. She seized up, wondering if he had noticed what she was doing. She quickly tried to wipe the moisture off her face, but it appeared that even with his limited thought power, he knew exactly what was going on.

"Uh oh…" He frowned quietly sliming his way closer to her. At the base of her seat he looked up at her with his blood-red eye, motionless. Whatever was going on in whatever it was that he used to think, she could not read from his expression. She became even more baffled when his frown suddenly inverted to a smile.

"Somebody needs a hug!"

Susan quickly protested, vainly trying to push off the oozing mass as he quickly slithered up her leg and onto her chest. His membranes stretching until they wrapped around her middle, under her arms and against her breast.

"No. B.O.B. please, I really don't need you to…could you get off, if you don't mind? B.O.B.?"

The blob only let out a contented sigh, snuggling against her. He was surprisingly warm and his hold around her was firm…and comforting. She slowly found herself wrapping her arms around him, her hands gently touching his sticky skin and holding him close. His eye closed and his smile widened, like he could fall asleep right where he was. She held him a little tighter, like he was some sort of odd stuffed animal.

Say what the others will about him being brainless, B.O.B. was right.

...She needed this.


End file.
